I was looking forward to trying Sync today now that it’s live, but my enthusiasm was immediately dampened after seeing the “Data Safety” section on the Google Play store.
Liftoff has been great, and want to say thanks for making an awesome app. This will continue to be my daily driver.
Edit: for clarity, because the post got way bigger than I expected.
Sync looks like a fantastic app, and the dev/s should charge whatever they feel is fair for their efforts, even if that’s through the usual ads + ad tracking.
My intent was just to post here in /c/Liftoff to thank the Liftoff devs for managing to somehow offer an awesome app without any of that.
I dont get you people. Making those apps is maybe a hobby for some but a job for others. People asked for Synch for Lemmy and the dev WORKED on it and will continue WORKING on it.
Love to see how many of you guys will work for free. And you probably all work for places that NEVER collect any data.
Could I use a free app for Lemmy? Sure, but I want Synch, because I know what Synch has to offer is what I want. I don’t need to settle for an “almost” solution. I can use Synch and I gladly paid for it.
Not to mention that Sync for Reddit had the same exact data advisory tag. The developer has been very open that he doesn’t store or sell the data, it is just needed for the free version to work properly.
I think the issue is not with wether the dev collects data, its about the dev using google products, which do collect, store and sell data.
There are alternatives to Firebase, (i think they can even be self hosted), so its something that can be improved without affecting much the development time or other aspects.
The Dev has shown countless times that he listens to his community and is willing to make changes. I mean for fucks sake he spent untold hours completely building a new UI and still made sure the old styling was available for users who prefer the classic look.
If enough people raise a stink about Google services I’m sure he will look at alternatives.
I mean, you can’t even install the pro version (without ads) unless you’re deep in the ass of the Google ecosystem. Someone checked and the pro version doesn’t send any tracking requests (which checks with what the developer said - the ad library is not even initialized in the pro version) so it’s not that bad for me.
But the part where I have to have Play Services is a huge no-no for me. So with Sync I can choose a) have spying ads or b) have different spying ads.
Of course it has the same data advisory tag, they both have/had a paid version of the app. It needs to collect financial information for that. That’s data that you have to offer voluntarily for christ sake, and then it checks whether your account is subscribed or not since lemmy itself wouldn’t indicate that. Even if it didn’t show ads, it would still have a data advisory tag. I can understand people who are extremely privacy obsessed online avoiding any app that collects data, even benign or optional data, just in case, but some people are treating it like sync is spyware just because it has a data advisory tag, which is ridiculous.
I think OP doesn’t mind paying for an app, it’s the “collect data” that was his issue. If the free version collects data to send you ads, and there is an option to buy and remove the data collection and ads, then that’s probably fine with most people.
That’s the way it is being reported. Buy to remove ads and the tracking goes away.
Yeah, I’ve been really disappointed in Lemmy’s response to sync. I thought this community was supposed to be technically minded but in every thread on Sync, the top comment is repeating disinformation about tracking and there’s tons of people tearing down the developer.
I get not wanting to use an App that has ads, but people are getting downright toxic over an App that no one is forcing them to use lol.
It’s extremely ridiculous. I just subscribed to Sync Ultra for $17/year. I have other apps that I subscribe to for a similar annual rate. I don’t mind paying to support a good app and its continued development. Pretty sure I can forego a few lattés a year and I’ll be OK while the devs get to eat and keep doing what they do.
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That’s not true. You can run analysis on the App’s activity. All the tracking calls go away when you upgrade. No need to trust the Dev.
Where are the disinformation? Show me how I can have the ad-free version on my phone that doesn’t have Play Services and I’ll be very happy.
There are lots of comments and posts giving the false impression that Sync is tracking you outside of what is needed to support ads, including posts showing trackers from websites that are linked through lemmy and not part of sync at all (you would get those same trackers just browsing vanilla lemmy and clicking through a link)
You can do your own tracker analysis on the App. When you pay to disable ads all tracking goes away, which lines up with the developers claims that he doesn’t even load those libraries through the ad SDK when you aren’t on the ad supported version.
And yeah, this is distributed through the play store, if that’s an issue for you, you don’t need to download it, but like… that’s not the misinformation I’m talking about.
Never noticed that, I think that the tracking because of ads is what people dislike.
I’d actually love to! While I like open source more, I’m not opposed to the occasional non-open-source app if it’s good and not shady. But I’d have to have Play Services on my phone, which I don’t. I used to use Sync Pro back in the Reddit days but then I switched to a different OS to have more privacy and I had to change to Relay Pro because Sync Pro doesn’t work without Play Services.
The fediverse has a very high percentage of users who are FOSS zealots. These people would rather drink rancid gnu piss from Richard Stallman’s sweaty jock strap than deal with commercialized software. After you’ve been around them long enough (1996 in my case) you learn to tune them out.
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Another thing to consider is that in the past apps could be sold separately with an ad version and an ad free version. So people could flat out avoid having an app that had any ad elements.
So there now only being an ad version, and then the initial first impression people saw was a subscription model to remove ads rubbed people the wrong way.
Either way, people can use the app or not, but it’s been odd how some people have beeb so emotional over people choosing to not use Sync. Like one of the top comments in this thread is just someone insulting foss and people not paying for Sync.
I don’t you should be forced to pay for it to stop collecting data assuming it does. Just give them non personalized ones instead. Unless that’s also what you meant then nvm.
Check the community